|
|
Article: God Bless Dogville; Lars von Trier's Awesome American Nightmare
- Article from:
- The Stranger
- Article date:
- April 15, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright The Stranger Apr 21, 2004. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
AMONG THE CORNUCOPIA of charges leveled at Lars von Trier after the Cannes premiere of his last film, Dancer in the Dark--2000's nouveau musical in which a blind immigrant to the 1940s Pacific Northwest is driven to kill then executed by the state--was the priggish gripe that the Danish von Trier had no business placing his dark fable in a country he'd never set foot in. Bristling with the knowledge that the makers of Casablanca never visited Morocco, von Trier took the critique as a challenge, and in Dogville, he places America center stage, using the land of opportunity as both setting and subject.
Located in the Rocky Mountains during the Great Depression, von Trier's Dogville is an ...